Various

“ DR. LATERNSER: Among the circle of persons who had Hitler’s complete confidence was there any military leader?
LAMMERS: I do not believe so. I do not know of one.
DR. LATERNSER: Now one last question: What was the reason for putting most of the occupied territories under Reich commissioners and only a few of them under military administration?
LAMMERS: As a rule it was the Führer’s wish that occupied territories be administered by political leaders. He considered generals unsuited for that task, because he accused them—I might put it this way—of having no political instinct. ”

“ Then, in the next paragraph, you say:
“If at home we had to announce our aims to the whole nation most openly and aggressively, in contrast to the others, the political leaders in the East must remain silent where German policy calls for necessary harshness. They must remain silent as to any derogatory opinions which they may form about the conquered peoples. Yes, a clever German policy may in certain circumstances do more in the German interest through alleviations which do not affect policy and certain humane concessions, than through open, inconsiderate brutality.” ”

“ HOESS: Gruppenführer Glücks was, so to speak, the inspector of concentration camps at that time and he was immediately subordinate to the Reichsführer.
DR. KAUFFMANN: Does the expression “secret Reich matter” mean that no one was permitted to make even the slightest allusion to outsiders without endangering his own life?
HOESS: Yes, “secret Reich matter” means that no one was allowed to speak about these matters with any person and that everyone promised upon his life to keep the utmost secrecy. ”

“ But, just because we are being attacked and because we cannot defend ourselves, and because we cannot decently ask the Tribunal to protect us against every accusation, I am asking Mr. Justice Jackson to clear the atmosphere somewhat and to state to us that these serious accusations—contempt of Court, anti-Semitic propaganda, or National Socialist propaganda, and so forth—were not really meant to be raised seriously. ”

“ Nobody in the Reich knew better than Hitler who was responsible for concentration camps and how he had to give an order. He would never have given me such an order and he could not have given it to me because I was, on Hitler’s personal order, in Austria from 28 March until 15 April. As to the time from 10 April until 8 May, when I was captured, including the few days when I was in Berlin I can state exactly just where I have been and what I have done, so that the question of giving an order in this connection is impossible. ”

“ I wrote a letter to the Führer, but did not use the wording of Bormann’s letter. I wrote appeasingly to the Führer that I was not doing any more than could and had to be done. I wanted to ward off an attack from headquarters for I knew it would come because I did more for the Eastern peoples than for the German people—that I was demanding more doctors than the German people had for their sick, that I was doing more in my capacity as Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories for the health problem and thereby for the Eastern people than German doctors could do for the German people. ”

“ I knew of some concentration camps, that is of two or three; and it was clear to me that others must exist. I cannot say more under oath.
MAJOR JONES: I put it to you that you knew quite well of this regime of terror but continued to serve in it until the last. Is that not so?
LAMMERS: What regime of terror? The concentration camp system existed. I knew that; everyone knew that.
MAJOR JONES: But that did not trouble your conscience, I take it.
LAMMERS: That they existed? I submitted my proposals with regard to the concentration camps to the Führer ”

“ LAMMERS: I did not see a written order.
COL. POKROVSKY: Yesterday you said, “all except me” expressed their opinion on Jewish problems. Who are all these, “all” except you? You remember that testimony yesterday?
LAMMERS: I testified yesterday that I had spoken to Himmler about this question and that I reserved for myself the right to report to the Führer. I also testified that I had this interview with the Führer but that the Führer was very difficult to persuade in these matters. I also testified yesterday that there were rumors about Jews being killed which led me to make investigations. ”

“ ROSENBERG: To refute the assertion that I destroyed culture and art and science in Estonia, I must point out that one of the first directions of the Eastern Ministry was to establish indigenous administrations in these three countries and to have the German administration in principal serve as a supervisory body. The limitations due to the war conditions were naturally given in times of war; they applied to spheres of war and armament economy, to the sphere of police security, and naturally to the political attitude in general. ”

“ The Tribunal have more important tasks than that of continuously protecting the Defense.
However, as to the particular accusation that National Socialist propaganda or that anti-Semitic propaganda is being made here, I think I can say, with a clear conscience, that none of the Defense Counsel, no matter what his own philosophy or what his political views in the past may have been, has ever dreamed of trying to use this courtroom to make ideological propaganda for the dead—I emphasize the word “dead”—world of the Third Reich. That would not only be wrong; it would be worse than a wrong ”

“ Imagine the formulas of Bormann’s letter translated into the language of a member of the German civilian administration, and you will get, roughly, the following views:
“The Slavs are to work for us. Insofar as we do not need them, they may die. Therefore, compulsory vaccination and German health service are superfluous. The fertility of the Slavs is undesirable. They may use contraceptives or practice abortion, the more the better. Education is dangerous. It is enough if they can count up to 100. At best an education which produces useful coolies for us is admissible. ”

“ You would not need an order of the Wehrmacht to encourage your population to murder fliers who had crashed, would you?
KEITEL: No, there was only the Wehrmacht which exclusively had the right to take a shot-down or landed airman into custody, and protect him against lynching of the population, and prevent anything like that from happening.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: You will agree with me that once an American or British airman was handed over to the SD, his chance of survival would not be—what—one in a million? He would be killed, would he not? ”

“ And the ill effects, due to the wrong masters, were branded by me, in the middle of the war, in speeches before political leaders, when I stated that this concentration of power as it existed at that moment, during the war, could only be a phenomenon of the war and could not be regarded as the National Socialist conception of a State. It may be opportune for many, it may be opportune for 200,000 people, but to adhere to it later on would mean the death of the individuality of 70 million. ”

“ WESTHOFF: Railways also, yes.
DR. LATERNSER: Industrial works?
WESTHOFF: Yes—I saw that afterwards outside of Leningrad—yes indeed!
DR. LATERNSER: In your sector was the order carried out by which Soviet Russian commissars were to be shot after being taken prisoners?
WESTHOFF: We had nothing to do with that. Prisoners of war that we took were all sent back to the division right away. We ourselves, the troop commanders—regimental and battalion commanders—had nothing to do with it, had even no opportunity at all to do this.
DR. LATERNSER: Witness, you have not answered my question correctly. ”

“ GEN. RUDENKO: In your document, which has been submitted by your defense counsel and which I will therefore not submit to you, Document Rosenberg-19, Riecke wrote, in a letter to all Reichsleiter of the press in November 1942:
“Koch has declared ‘that the Ukraine is for us only an object of exploitation, and that it must pay the expenses of the war, and that in a certain way the population must, as a second-rate people, be utilized for the tasks of the war, even if they have to be caught with a lasso.’ ”
This was the policy of Koch in the Ukraine. This document was submitted by your counsel. ”

“ I did not establish a single concentration camp in the Reich from 1943 onwards. Every concentration camp in the Reich as I know today, and as has been proved here with certainty, was established on orders of Himmler to Pohl. This applies also—and I wish to emphasize this—to the Mauthausen Camp. Not only were Austrian authorities excluded from establishing the Mauthausen Camp, but they were unpleasantly surprised because neither was the conception of a concentration camp in that sense known in Austria, nor was there a necessity for establishing concentration camps anywhere in Austria. ”

“ The Defense in this Trial are in a very difficult position. I think every one of you will admit that human ability and an almost exceptional degree of political tact is required in order to defend in this Trial without ever making some small mistake. At any rate, I, for myself, do not claim that I am absolutely sure of myself in this respect or that I will not perhaps commit some small faux pas. We find ourselves in a very difficult situation, difficult as far as the world is concerned, difficult as far as the Tribunal are concerned, and difficult as far as the German public is concerned. ”

“ KALTENBRUNNER: But please, would you let me defend myself on this point. It was clear to me that this dealt with the treatment of agents to whom the provisions of the Geneva Convention for prisoners of war are not applicable; and you cannot deny a power at war the right to let its security police take in hand those men who do not come under the regulations of the Geneva War Convention. That is the perfect right of any power at war. There were also German agents who were engaged in hostile activity in England and other countries. ”

“ GEN. RUDENKO: I do not ask why. I ask you: did he say that?
THE PRESIDENT: General Rudenko, you are going too fast. You must wait until the man is finished.
GEN. RUDENKO: He is going into too many details, Mr. President.
[Turning to the defendant.] Well, you admit the Crimea. You agreed with Hitler’s idea concerning the seizure of these territories?
ROSENBERG: You can see from the document and you can see from my speech how I pictured the self-determination of all the peoples in the East in a new order of states; and I controverted the declarations of the Führer. That can be seen here. ”

“ LAMMERS: From the military point of view the Führer praised the generals as a group and also individual generals very highly. As far as politics were concerned, he was always of the opinion that they knew nothing about politics and that one should, as far as possible, keep them away from a position where political matters had to be decided.
DR. LATERNSER: It is also known that Hitler would not suffer any contradiction. Was not that the real reason for Blomberg’s dismissal and the dismissal of Fritsch and Beck—the fact that they repeatedly contradicted him? ”

“ Beginning at the 14th line:
“After continuous observation of the state of affairs in the Occupied Eastern Territories, I am convinced that German politics may have their own, possibly contemptuous opinion of the qualities of the conquered peoples, but that it is not the mission of German political representatives to proclaim measures and opinions which could eventually reduce the conquered peoples to dull despair instead of promoting the desired utilization of manpower to capacity.” ”

“ LAMMERS: On receiving that report I did everything in my power. The report was immediately submitted to the Führer, and if it is true, I admit it was murder; but I do not remember this report just now. If he killed these people, he is a murderer; but I am not Herr Koch’s judge.
Rosenberg complained very bitterly about this matter and it was immediately passed on to the Führer.
MAJOR JONES: Rosenberg continued in office with this man as one of his commissioners, did he not?
LAMMERS: The Führer asked Bormann and myself to decide; and he tried to console Rosenberg. ”

“ DR. KAUFFMANN: If you had knowledge at that time of the Einsatzgruppen and their significance, then the question arises what your attitude about them was and, in case you condemned them, what you did to have them abolished? Did you have a possibility to do so or did you not?
KALTENBRUNNER: I said before that an Einsatzkommando was never set up under my direction or my orders. The existence and the previous activities of such Einsatzkommandos became known to me late in the fall of 1943 and I knew that I would have to resist this misuse of the men who were under the Reich Security Main Office. ”

“ HOESS: In 1938 Minister Frick was at Sachsenhausen with the Regierungspräsident.
COL. AMEN: Do you recall any other ministers who were there at any time?
HOESS: Not at Sachsenhausen, but at Auschwitz, the Minister of Justice.
COL. AMEN: Who was he?
HOESS: Thierack.
COL. AMEN: And who else? Do you recall any others?
HOESS: Yes, but I do not remember the name for the moment.
COL. AMEN: Well, who?
HOESS: I have already stated that in the record, but at the moment I cannot recall the name.
COL. AMEN: All right. You have testified that many of the execution orders were signed by Müller. ”